Senate aide tweaks boss's Wikipedia bio

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting confirmation that a former staffer amended his boss's biography at the encyclopedic site. Among the handful of changes was beefing up her list of awards.

The staffer also erased passages from the biography of Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, the report said. The sentences in question focused on a 1997 conflict-of-interest controversy in which Blum, an investment banker, "had invested millions of dollars in Chinese businesses when Ms. Feinstein was campaigning in the Senate to lift trade sanctions against the country."

Attention surrounding the enterprising Capitol Hill contributors has snowballed since a Massachusetts newspaper first reported that aides to Rep. Marty Meehan, a local Democrat, were guilty of allegedly biased tweaks. Wikipedia has since published an entry detailing more than 1,000 edits carried out by myriad politicos' staffers.

For his part, a spokesman for Feinstein told the Chronicle that the back-door approach won't be tolerated in the future: "We advised all members of the staff that it would be inappropriate to provide updates on Wikipedia, and if they notice errors, they should contact the communications office, and we would make an official notice to Wikipedia."